Transforming CX in an Era of Self-Service: Insights from Customer Contact Week

This week, at the Customer Contact Week conference it became increasingly clear that the trends shaping Customer Experience (CX) this year are beginning to solidify. At Dashbot, we're particularly thrilled to see these developments, as they align closely with the strategies we've long championed for transforming CX practices.

A New Directive for CX Teams

The call for CX teams today is clear: align with the C-Suite's focus on boosting margins and slashing costs. It's especially crucial to translate traditional CX metrics like satisfaction scores and meantime to resolution, etc. into terms that directly tie into executive-level metrics. This shift requires a keen understanding of the broader business impact of CX initiatives.

"Successful CX is not just about keeping customers happy; it's about directly contributing to the company's bottom line." – Jordan Zivoder, CMP Research

The Cost of Customer Service

With customer service traditionally viewed as a margin-shrinking, cost-driving function, the pressure has never been higher to reverse this trend. The goal? Increase containment to save money. It’s just that simple. 

Automation is Coming

Nearly 60% of executives view self-service as a key strategy for reducing costs, amidst rising pressures and the looming threat of recession. Organizations aim to have 60% of customers start in self-service by 2025, with expectations for containment rates to double from 25% to 50%.

The challenge with automation lies in finding the perfect balance between operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Customer Trend

Today's customers are more tech-savvy than ever, with expectations shaped by a world changed by the pandemic. Some 82% of customers desire control over how they are served. This marks a shift towards empowering customers to resolve issues in their preferred manner, moving from self-serving to self-directed service models.

"Empowering customers to resolve issues on their terms isn't just a service upgrade; it's a strategic necessity." – Jordan Zivoder, CMP Research

Employee Trend ‍

While self-service may reduce volume-induced burnout among agents it also necessitates a shift in the skills required for agents, who will handle more complex and challenging issues. Done poorly it may lead to a new type of burnout.

"What that means is what's left for the front-line agents, they're going to be dealing with more complex issues." – Jordan Zivoder, CMP Research

Dashbot's Perspective

‍At Dashbot, we believe the Effort Score is more crucial than ever as a result of these trends–and importantly our Effort score is different. Our platform uses AI to derive the score directly from the raw text. As a result, we do not rely on customers responding to post-engagement surveys and deliver 100% coverage. This places us at the forefront of the transformation to self-directed automations. Here's our 3-step process.

1. Identify Automation Opportunities: By deriving effort scores across all existing live chat data and other customer interactions we may uncover low effort use cases ripe for automation.
2. Harmonize Customer Feedback: Because our scores and categorization (dynamic or predefined) are derived from the raw text of your customer interactions we may deliver harmonized metrics across ALL channels.
3. Optimize with Clear Signals: The combination of effort scoring with dynamic categorization delivers novel insights into both agent and bot performance—providing a clear signal to monitor all interaction channels and identify where customers getting frustrated and why as part of an ongoing process.

Adapting to a Self-Service Dominant Future‍

‍With a significant 72% of executives reporting a rise in self-service demand, the trend towards enabling customers to solve problems independently is undeniable. Yet, as we move towards this self-service dominant future, the importance of understanding effort becomes even more pronounced. That is, you MUST be able to answer the question: are we successfully enabling self-directed solutions or creating more frustration? It's not just about offering self-service; it's an ongoing process to implement, monitor (effort) and adjust.

Dashbot: Pioneering the Future of CX

Our journey at Dashbot is about more than just leveraging technology; it's about reimagining the role of CX in the digital age. We're committed to guiding businesses through this transformation, with a clear focus on optimizing customer interactions through insightful, data-driven strategies.

Invitation to Transform Together

As we reflect on the insights from Customer Contact Week, it's clear that the path to exceptional CX is both complex and rewarding. For those ready to embark on this journey, Dashbot is here to help. 

Reach out to us for a free assessment of your customer data.

Let's explore together how we can elevate your CX strategy, ensuring it not only meets the demands of today's tech-savvy customers but also aligns seamlessly with your business objectives. Together, we can redefine customer service for the better.